The government has dismissed reports that suggest business secretary Lord Mandelson plans to crackdown on illegal file sharing, by slapping hefty fines on thousands of individuals found guilty of abusing their web access.
A spokeswoman at the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) told The Register that it was “ …

COMMENTS

Garrrrrrrrrrgh

Treasury minister Stephen Timms, who took charge of the government’s Digital Britain plans earlier this month, told the Financial Times on Friday that UK.gov was hoping to reduce illegal file sharing in Blighty by 70 per cent within a year.

Could they please concentrate on solving proper crimes with Victims please, Like the burglaries where no Police presence ever happens and you get a crime number down the phone. this is a civil matter to be dealt withby the civil courts the idiots in Government should actually try fixing more important things, like education, the NHS etc...

lol

It's a dead cert then.

Every stupid policy this government came up with (which is, what, nearly all of them,?) started with an outright denial. Often by Mandy himself. Expect a concerted attempt to convince people of the evil of downloading and that these fines must be implemented to save the people from themselves, and when that exercise fails expect them to just do it anyway.

Was David Icke right?

"He had a private dinner with Geffen, who is a long-standing critic of illegal file sharing, while holidaying in the Greek island of Corfu earlier this month at a villa owned by the Rothschild banking family." - that sounds too much like something chucked around by conspiracy theorists about the Illuminati.

Is it me or has Lord Mandleson of Hartlepool managed to get himself more and more power over time. Not bad for someone who wasn't elected..

On the arctual article - Think targetting kids over is wrong. Changes to the music industry model would help. I must admit - I'm quite impressed at Spotify and think other listen to systems are pretty good. I don't feel the need to download any music.

Dear gawd in heaven (if you exist), help us.

Oh, the unelected, twice banished fucktard is, it appears, able to decide what the rest of us should be doing and imposing financial penalties if we break HIS rules?

True, or not? I don't know. But I do know I'm getting sick and tired of him having his finger in every pie. I despise the fact that he's unelected by any of us, but appears to have great power - more so, it transpires that that other unelected twat, Brown.

Corfu? This time of the year?

"He had a private dinner with Geffen, who is a long-standing critic of illegal file sharing, while holidaying in the Greek island of Corfu earlier this month at a villa owned by the Rothschild banking family."

Thinking about children

Interested in how Mandy will deal with this. NuLab's frontline has been filled out, not with visionaries and leaders, but with a shockingly average bunch of tards. Ministards, if you will. Darling will have rings run round him by the city. Jacqui, Blears and Harman - intellectual lightweights, and they haven't cut it. Something different can be expected from Mandelson.

But re-reading, where does responsibility lie? According to the article, Mandelson at the Department for Business Innovation and Skills has taken over responsibility for digital policy. Maenwhile, Treasury minister Stephen Timms took charge of the government’s Digital Britain plans earlier this month, and seems to have a policy in action left for him by the previous guy. If that's the case, doesn't sound as though either of them is that bothered.

"either by slowing internet connections"

Alternatives

Until there are alternative legal P2P for music and videos at a reasonable price there will always be pirates. There is no hope of reducing the amount of downloaders, only moving them onto a legal alternative.

If thats not enough motivation why don't we just remind the MP's that they could charge tax on it and make a fortune.

Money Machine

There is no need for new hard hitting laws, ACS:LAW are already threatening to take tens of thousands of people to court in the UK over alledged copyright infringements that were made over a year ago, based on IP address alone, unless they pay up.

Potential = 6 million * £500, if people pay up to their offer to settle, or 6 million * £50,000/unlimited if it goes to court. I am suprised that there aren't many more law firms chasing this huge prize.

Shame most of those 6 million are too young to vote for the Pirate Party UK!

Simples

You have to feel sorry for for David Geffen - what with the credit crunch and all he's probably down to his last few billion. I can understand why Lord Ill-Repute feels sorry for him and wants, out of pure generosity of spirit, to help stuff his pockets with even more money. Very magnanimous of him.

Title

Sanctions? That stuff happens already as standard. Usenet/Bittorrent/File downloading sites etc.. are all shaped in one form or another, content is filtered (IWF) and all ISP's have a cap anyhow (except Plusnet's unlimited, which has no cap but traffic shaping).

So they are pretty much saying "if you download stuff, you can expect your internet connection to remain as it is!".... good policy that.

And for our next act...

"Carter’s final report on Digital Britain was published in June. It stopped short of mandating a mechanism for persistent copyright infringers to be disconnected, but did suggest port blocking, protocol blocking, URL and IP address blocking, bandwidth capping, bandwidth shaping and filtering of specific content as sanctions."

Unambitious

"Treasury minister Stephen Timms, who took charge of the government’s Digital Britain plans earlier this month, told the Financial Times on Friday that UK.gov was hoping to reduce illegal file sharing in Blighty by 70 per cent within a year."

I imagine that if the Pirate Party were elected, they could easily meet this target...

Lord who ??

Its amazing that anyone listens to this man ,twice found guilty of corruption with many more suspected cases as well.,given a peerage for what ???

He is and always has been a tax payer liability we have all funded his lavish lifestyle,this should serve to boost even further the pirate parties agenda.Its amazing how they can do all this crime fighting instead of doing something about the catastrophic failure there policies have had on the economy.But i suppose anything to divert media attention away from the horrendous state of the economy while getting a free meal is what Lord Mandelson is all about.

cabinetry

I can't help noticing that the Cabinet is about 1.5 times the size--counting only bodies, not titles--it was in the days when the UK administered a great deal of the world, apparently to its own satisfaction if not the world's.

And in the days of Bagehot, Babbage, and Brunel was there such a ministry as Business, Skills, and Innovation? I just don't recall reading of it.

80's sci-fi or...

The only good politician.....

is a dead one.

Honestly, there does not seem to be any way to get rid of these clowns in any country in the world.

The worse they are, the higher up the ladder they climb. In the UK, you have an even worse time of it since you can't even vote some of the "Politards" out of office since they have some kind of "birthright". I assume that's the "House of Tards"?

Over here in the US (Notice I did not say Good Old USA) we have the Republitards and the Dummycrats. Although they act like they have a "birthright" they don't but the Public (read damned idiots) keep voting these wastes of skin into office.

Not even a hooker girlfriend tell all book is enough to get them to resign. No, the only thing that works is accusations of homosexuality, prefereably with an under age boy. There is no amount of public repenting and bible thumping that can get you out of that one.

That said, we the public are requesting that underage Gays everywhere try to make up compromising evidence against all conservative politicians wherever and whenever possible.

Lord Meddlesome

As noted by other posters, this man was twice thrown out of positions of power within the British Parliament WHICH HE SHOULD NEVER HAVE HAD IN THE FIRST PLACE - he has NEVER been voted into office by the Electorate, but Blair gave him public office anyway. TWICE. The second time was a few months after the [EXPLETIVE DELETED] was removed for getting caught doing things he shouldn't.

After his second "sacking" from Westminster, he then moved across/up to the European Parliament where, once again, he got caught misbehaving and was asked to leave. Bearing in mind what shennanigans some of the MEPs have been getting away with ("creative" accounts, abuse of office, philandering etc), Mandleson must have been up to some pretty serious sh-1-t indeed for Brussels to dump him.

And now he's back in Westminster AGAIN - still unelected, but taking over more and more of the Government's power and authority, apparently making policies and decisions far beyond the scope of the position he (somehow) holds.

I would love to know what he has on Gordon Brown and the rest of New Labour, as I cannot see any other reason for him to be able to get away with this. And on a related note, wasn't he one of the most vocal supporters of the move to abolish the House of Lords? If he was that set against it, why is he now a Lord himself?

Flames, cos this [EXPLETIVE DELETED] is taking the whole country to hell in a handbucket, but fast!

I'm not bovvered...

Other readers have referred to the pathological lying record of Peter Mandelson, so I won't (further).

However, when the subject of piracy detection (and the supposed ineffectiveness of Peerguardian2) was recently discussed on a torrent site I use, one of the administrators said the best way was to keep a low profile by using private trackers and avoiding mainstream stuff.

Sickening...

It's just sickening that this creature holds any sort of power whatsoever. A disgraced, discredited Uber-sleazebag from a disgraced, discredited party of sleazebags.

And then there's the legislation to allow "Lords" to give up life peerages. Come on, Gordy, you tub of lard, who are you kidding? Why don't you just drop the bullshit and call this the Mandelson Maneouver Act, as it's clearly designed to further the political ambitions of one man, and one man only.

Do you really think the electorate are that blind that we haven't noticed you are now implementing legislation purely for the benefit and advancement of Party Members now? You are a corrupt, dishonourable cretin, it is now plain for ALL to see, and your final act of "leadership" should involve being left alone in a locked room with a bottle of scotch and a revolver - which you would do very soon if you had any of the integrity you claim.

Anonymous, lest I be black-bagged for speaking my mind in Modern Britain.

Sums it up perfectly....

Oh, the unelected, twice banished fucktard is, it appears, able to decide what the rest of us should be doing and imposing financial penalties if we break HIS rules?

True, or not? I don't know. But I do know I'm getting sick and tired of him having his finger in every pie. I despise the fact that he's unelected by any of us, but appears to have great power - more so, it transpires than that other unelected twat, Brown."

It's 1.30pm GMT and...

...the freetards have clearly gotten out of bed.

Am shocked not a single voice is sounding on this comment-page in support of the measure. It is about helping ensure artists get paid so that they can afford to keep doing their job and off the dole, and so new artists can train in the reasonable hope there is a market for their output, sufficient to feed their families. In this economic climate I'm surprised at the lack of sympathy for this reality.

If music and film stay free then demand, i.e. want backed up by payment, collapses. We all have a part to play in helping this not happen, and help shore up that demand undermined by freetardism. I applaud Mandelson's statement.

Paris, because she's the standard of musicIan you'll get if demand erodes further.

Out of touch

Sure, if you go to dinner and you are entertained by a rich media giant that isn't going to make you favourable in any way.

How about concentrating on the real crimes? such as murder, rape, burglary, violence, and hard drugs (heroin).

I couldn't give two flying f's about some media giant not being able to afford a second luxury yacht when there are oaps and war veterans being beaten and robbed. Not to mention all the people are being stabbed to death.

@puck

It's not about "freetards", it's about a toadying, corrupt and woefully inept "government" being led by every lobby group who offers them a free dinner and a luxury overseas all-expenses-paid holiday, and pushing their agenda to the top of the list instead of acting in the interests of the people they're supposed to represent.

That dirty swine Mandelson also met with Gaddaffi's son while on the same holiday, and suddenly there's discussion that the Lockerbie bomber may be jetting off to Libya cos he's ill - aww didums.

Paris, cos if she didn't put other people's interests above her own, we'd never have sneaky pics of her beaver as she steps out of cars. Gawd bless 'er.

Unelected?

@ Lord Meddlesome

"As noted by other posters, this man was twice thrown out of positions of power within the British Parliament WHICH HE SHOULD NEVER HAVE HAD IN THE FIRST PLACE - he has NEVER been voted into office by the Electorate, but Blair gave him public office anyway. TWICE. The second time was a few months after the [EXPLETIVE DELETED] was removed for getting caught doing things he shouldn't."

Erm....he was the MP for Hartlepool between 1992 and 2004 - which counts as being elected when he had those positions at least in my book!

It is illegal but you won't get caught

Your understanding is incorrect - it is both illegal to share and (knowingly) to download copyrighted material.

However, there are so many ways to avoid being caught, some legal, some somewhat less legal but all perfectly straightforward, that it's just not worth worrying about.

In the unlikely event that any law firm threatens me, I shall deny it and offer to see them in court. At which point they will withdraw their complaint in case they lose and set a precedent they don't like.

The fact is that they are wasting their time. If they introduced the death penalty for file sharing it still wouldn't fall by 70% - idiots.

@seanj

No. This is not about corruption and lobbying. It's about doing the right thing. Any form of lobbying, is generally acceptable, as long as it is about doing the right thing. We don't refer to the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner, Joanna Lumley's recent lobbying of Gordon Brown about the Gurkhas, because she and he did the right thing. David Geffen and Peter Mandelson are doing the right thing.

As for failing to uphold "the interests of the people they're supposed to represent." I think you're absolutely right that there are some excruciating snafus which pain many people, (which incidentally nearly but don't quite match the number and scale of those at the end of the previous Tory administration), but I very strongly disagree with you that this issue is one of those snafus. I believe artists must be paid.